I'm Guessing That Cyberspace is Prone to Dumbasses Too - But That Should Really Go Without Saying

Recent article on Associated Press where this yahoo (note: lower case - not Yahoo-cased!) in Mexico was posting in Facebook how he was having a great time - despite being wanted on sundry charges in the good old U S of A. Well - the latest thing in law enforcement is (and this should be no surprise to anyone) that the good guys with badges use every tool at their disposal - including social networking. Sure 'nuff, this twit (note: twit - not Twitterer) had a new "friend request) from someone who he didn't really know that well. Well - one thing led to another - now he has PLENTY of time to consider that intelligence is no less important in cyber-space than in the real world.

Censorship - In The News Yet Again

Let's see if I can get this right without cheating...

A couple of days ago, the President(?) of Venezuala(?), Mr. Chavez(?) (okay, feel free to add in the correct title, country and name! The rest of the information is correct - and even accurate!, went on record that saying that the Internet should be "regulated" and censored. As one example, he had stated that his opponenets had published blatantly false accusations against him.

For one thing, I don't see how it can be possible to regulate the Internet. It will always be the Wild Wild West and no sooner will they have one hole in the dyke plugged then another will occur (to mix some metaphors I guess!). That having been said - even if they found a way to regulate the Internet - to pass legislation about what can and cannot be said - how on earth to they plan on enforcing the regulations? Will each government body be responsible for their own citizens? Just sounds very pie-in-the-sky to me.

SxSWi - Am I DeGeeking?

Saw an article on the SxSWi today. At first, I confused it with the annual(?) South by Southwest Music Festival and quickly discovered that this is apparently a "spin-off" of SxSW (aka the Music Festival).

I realized then, that perhaps I am degeeking myself when I would be more excited to attend SxSW than SxSWi!

Virtual "Red Light District"

There has been news lately about a proposal to create a virtual "red light district". The current proposal submitted to ICANN (international organization whose responsbility it is to approve and reject domain naming issues such as these) is that the adult content sites would be able to have a .xxx domain extension.

However, this would strictly be voluntary and it certainly doesn't mean that all adult content will be hosted here, so in a respect, this very well might just be a panacea for all things sex-related, but I suppose that it's a start.

Still - even if this proposal is accepted and implemented, treading carefully will always be the motto when navigating the world wide web.

Let's not even get into the topic of what is pornography and what is art either, that's a whole other subject!

Tag Day for Bill Gates?

Poor Bill - no longer the richest kid on the block anymore. This title has been usurped by some dude - from a developing country (I believe) none-the less!

On a side note, Mr. Bill is certainly one of those people that I would answer to the "if you could have dinner with 8 people, who would they be". Not only do I admire his business accumen, but even more-so, I have a great respect for the amount of good that he and his wife do with their fortune.

I'd be willing to bet that even half of the bajillion-aires made the same commitment to social programs, this world would be a better place.

The Future of Computing - Say What? Really?

There was an article recently by a Google big-wig who stated that in three years, conventional computers will be obsolete, replaced by nicely convergent smartphones.

Hogwash - say I. Perhaps (and probably more than likely) smartphones will be more prevalent - more powerful, and certainly more "strategic".

Until smartphones have the input and output capabilities of a notebook or desktop workstation (or even a netbook for that matter), I think that one need not dread the obsolence of any computer purchases. Let me qualify this - no matter the technology, any hardware that is purchased now will be effectively obsolete in three years anyways, so I doubt if we all have too much to worry on that end.

Spend hearty - and spend fast and make the most of the technology you have. Three years is an eternity in this business.

Microsoft - Spending the Bucks on R&D

Microsoft has announced that they're going to spend $9b on R&D in 2010. Maybe I should forward them my blog rant on the Samsung Internet Fridge and tell them not to spend the money this way :)